Biggest Radiation Oncology Conference in the World

I recently had the chance to attend one of the biggest radiation oncology conferences in the world, ESTRO36 in Vienna, Austria. The conference brings together radiation oncologists, radiotherapists and medical physicists as well as many other scientists and industry leaders for five days of lectures, paper presentations and group discussions. There is a big emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration which forms a huge part of successful cancer treatment. The conference is a great opportunity to get up to date with the latest innovations and developments in our field.

I presented an abstract entitled “QA of stereotactic radiotherapy combined with electromagnetic MLC tracking using a silicon detector” during a physics session on dosimetry and detector development. I discussed experiments using a radiation detector called ‘DUO’ developed here at the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP) and how this device can be used to improve patient safety, in a somewhat complicated cancer treatment modality referred to as Adaptive Radiotherapy.

The conference allowed me to meet like-minded physicists from all around the world and gain a valuable insight into the future direction of radiation oncology as a discipline.